Ukrainian Journalist Describes Brutal Assault

Ukrainian journalist and activist Tetyana Chornovol lies on a stretcher at a hospital in Kyiv on Christmas Day.

The Ukrainian opposition journalist who was brutally beaten on Christmas Day says she believes her attackers thought she was dead when they left her bleeding on the side of a road.

Talking to the 1+1 TV channel on January 5, Tetyana Chornovol said she did not resist her assailants.

"I felt my nose sinking in," she said. "I felt it being destroyed under the blows. I was standing with my hands down and they continued hitting me."

Chornovol was seen in the televised interview with a bandage covering her nose and her right eye swollen and bruised.

Doctors say Chornovol's condition is "satisfactory" but that she needs two more months to fully recover.

"I cannot sit in front of the computer. When I start to read text, I get dizzy," she said. "I have some sort of an emotional problem. Somehow I get excited very quickly."

Chornovol, 34, was forced off the road while driving and severely beaten by unknown men in the early hours of December 25. She suffered a concussion and a broken nose.

Chornovol writes for the "Ukrainska Pravda" opposition website. She is a prominent activist who has given speeches at recent antigovernment protests.

The attack came shortly after Chornovol published an article on the assets of senior government officials.

She is convinced that the attack was ordered.

"I was very concentrated," she said. "I was -- to a large extent -- trying to survive. The events developed so that it was clear it was an ordered attack."

The chief of the Ukrainian Investigative Directorate, Mykola Chynchyn, said that five suspects had been detained two days after the attack.

The United States has expressed its "grave concern" over the attack, calling it part of an "emerging pattern of targeted violence and intimidation" aimed at activists and journalists who have participated in or reported on the ongoing pro-EU protests in Ukraine.


With reporting kyivpost.ua and 1+1